


Irreplaceable

by ElsaFH (Elsa0806)



Series: AtsuHina Week 2020 [7]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detroit: Become Human Fusion, Alternate Universe - Police, Android Miya Atsumu, Android Miya Osamu, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, AtsuHina Week, AtsuHina Week 2020, Human Hinata Shouyou, Kinda, M/M, Mentioned Miya Osamu, Mentions of Rape, Mentions of Suicide, Murder, Pining Hinata Shouyou, References to Depression, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:34:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24695329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsa0806/pseuds/ElsaFH
Summary: AtsuHina Week, Day 7: Detroit: Become Human AU (free prompt)Hinata believes, from the bottom of his heart, that androids are more than clockwork pieces and blue blood carrying data all over a synthetic body. They’reso much more,but the only proof he has is the deep love he feels for one.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Sakusa Kiyoomi, Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Series: AtsuHina Week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1777000
Comments: 8
Kudos: 88





	Irreplaceable

**Author's Note:**

> Can y'all believe I wrote this in twenty-four hours or so? I'm shocked. I'm just... bruh. 
> 
> ANYWAY thank you all so much for all the comments and the love I've gotten! It means the world to me. I'm so not used to this amount of comments and reactions that I... [wipes tear] yeah. 
> 
> Welcome, then, to the last entry of this AtsuHina Week! It's been CRAZY but I've enjoyed every bit of this. I'm tired and sleepy and I just finished this (there're probably a lot of mistakes too) but I'm happy with the outcome. 
> 
> This AU was [Tomi's](https://twitter.com/tsmtminluv) idea, so please go hit her up on Twitter! She's amazing and her art is [chef kiss]. I hope you like it, babe!
> 
> Without further ado, I'll let you guys read. I promised myself 10k and that's exactly what we have here. 
> 
> See you at the end notes! 

Hinata still remembers the first time Atsumu and Osamu arrived to the police department. It was weird to see two androids so impossibly alike and for a moment, he’d thought he was seeing two robots of the exact same model walking through the door.

Meian, the captain, had gathered them in the hall of the Tokyo Police Department. He’d even asked Sakusa, Hinata, and the rest of the forensics team to join them to this “super special meeting”, and even though his boss wasn’t really happy about having his work interrupted, he still assisted. The fact that he’d been willing to spend time with the rest of the police department was a big step and Shouyou knew it: he didn’t like to be close to people he wasn’t sure had gone through a deep process of sanitization and Hinata wasn’t that certain about _some_ of the policemen.

He was laughing at his boss’ wrinkled nose and the fact that he could see how he pursed his lips even with the face mask on when captain Meian entered the hall once again. Following suit, walking at the same pace and with identical body postures, was a pair of androids. Tall and muscular with broad backs and tight grey, black, and blue suits hugging the roundness of their arms, the tension on their thighs. They moved with the precision and the measure only machines can show; no unnecessary motions, graceful, and almost lethal.

They looked so alike Hinata almost had a whiplash when his head snapped from one of them to the other, scanning their bodies with and attentive stare to pinpoint the differences. It was _confusing_. He squinted at them.

Their hair colour was different alright. The one at the right had straight, dark brown hair and the one at the left’s was curlier and a pretty ash blond. Both of them with an undercut and both of them with a slightly tanned skin for which men all over the world would kill. Their eye colour was different, too. The dark haired one’s were a bit greener, while the blond’s were more of a hazel hue.

 _Pretty_.

Meian stopped in front of the group of people gathering in the hall and the androids stopped right behind them. Shouyou looked at the captain, leaning forwards with expectation written all over the lines of his face; he’d never imagined there’d be androids working in the police department. Not after what had happened in Detroit a few years ago— Hinata had even thought they’d stopped fabricating androids altogether.

But this was Japan and although CyberLife was an American company, they still had a branch office —huge— in Tokyo.

“Morning, officers,” Meian started after clearing his throat. Hinata switched the weight of his body from his left foot to his right foot. “I’d like to introduce you to two new additions to our police department. These androids will be working with us for the time being and until new notice. Please,” he continued, scanning the crowd gathered in front of him with something akin to wariness moving behind his eyes, “try to get along. I know some of you might have _problems_ with androids but they’re here for the best.”

His eyes fell on Sakusa then and Hinata heard the annoyed snort at his right. His boss was mostly known for sanitizing everything on his path… and hating androids with passion. When he found out about the revolution that had gone down in Detroit, he had a grimace of disgust that seemed to have permanently installed itself on every line of his face. Something about the idea of androids being treated as human despite not having been born as human irked him deeply.

Hinata tried to understand but he couldn’t. Androids were just… different. They were manmade, yes, but they still developed feelings, didn’t they? Machines didn’t develop feelings. Androids were standing in the meeting point of humans and machines and they danced in between one world and the other.

“Atsumu and Osamu will be working with you from now on, then. They’ve already been assigned to the departments that need them the most: Osamu will be working with interrogations and suspects handling. Atsumu, on the other hand, will be assigned—”

“Don’t do it,” Sakusa spat.

“—to forensics. It’ll take care of analysing samples on the spot and getting information of the whole scene. It can recreate an entire crime scene in its head after all,” Meian’s voice sounded excited and he almost made it seem like he was excited about the entire ordeal. Hinata cast a sideways glance towards Sakusa, swallowing around the lump that had formed in his throat when his black eyes shone with murderous intent. Of course they’d have the bad luck of getting one of the androids assigned to them. “That’s all. Go back to work.”

There was a general ‘yessir’ that bounced off of the white, blue, and grey walls and then the atmosphere was filled with the deep and uncoordinated sound of at least fifty people’s footsteps. Hinata turned towards his boss, shuffling uncomfortable on his spot while he waited patiently for Sakusa to move.

“Uhm, Omi-san?” he called, letting a nervous laughter fall from his lips.

“Say, Hinata,” he started, sighing deeply before straightening his back to start walking to the underground laboratory. “Do you think I’ll have to pay for them if they magically get sulphuric acid all over their heads?”

“ _Omi-san_.”

He grumbled underneath his breath and started walking towards the elevator. Hinata rushed behind him to follow, barely looking at Meian and the androids —Atsumu and Osamu— while the doors buzzed closed and ambient music started chiming around them.

It didn’t take too long for the android to show up in the laboratory. Sakusa was working on the samples he’d extracted from under a victim’s nails, following the captain’s hunch that she’d been murdered by a close relative. Shouyou was filing some reports, pouting at his empty cup of tea, when he heard the humming of the glass doors opening and the buzzing of the sanitizer spraying the android from head to toe.

“Oh dear,” Hinata left out, placing his empty cup of tea on the desk. He pushed against the edge of the surface, dragging the wheels of his chair over the tiled floor. The rattling of the plastic cut through the alcohol-smelling atmosphere while he ran towards the door, reaching out with his hand to jerk the android out from down the cloud of sanitizer. “I’m so sorry! I told Omi-san to deactivate this when he wasn’t alone in the laboratory but he won’t listen to me no matter what I do…”

The androids fingers were warm and soft against his and Hinata’s amber eyes fell on the slightly tanned skin. It was so smooth, like a baby’s, and he suddenly felt ashamed of his calloused fingertips and all those paper cuts over his palm and close to the crease of his pinkie.

“Are you okay?” he asked. The android’s eyes were on him now, gazing at him with an intensity that almost made him feel uncomfortable enough to squirm. Those hazel eyes could see absolutely everything, _know_ absolutely everything with one single look, and Hinata had never felt so exposed in his entire life. How much did the android found out with that single look?

“I’m fine,” he assured. The deep voice that reached Hinata’s ears made him blink in astonishment and he almost felt like the skin against his fingers was prickling with electricity. He retracted his hand with one quick motion. “Thank you.”

“Ah. Ah, yeah, no problem! My boss’s a little—”

“Oi, _Hinata_.”

“Shit.”

“Have you seen the…” black irises raised from the report in front of them, hands of long fingers tensing around the papers at the same time he stopped mid-step. His stare went from Hinata to the android and after blinking slowly as if to clear his vision, he left out a long, deep sigh that felt like it was being tore out from the centre of his chest. “Yikes.”

“Hello,” the android started. “My name’s Atsumu. I’m the android sent by CyberLife.”

“I see,” Sakusa mused, nodding. Hinata looked at him, following the motion of his hand while he adjusted the rubber globes over his skin with an unpleasant sound that seemed to bounce off of the walls. It was the same sort of sound balloons produced. “Now be a good robot and get out of here.”

 _There it is_.

“ _Omi-san_ ,” Shouyou complained. He left out a trembling laughter while he smiled up at Atsumu, trying to tell him without words that he didn’t share his boss’ ideas about androids. “Atsumu-san is here to help us out with our cases. Please be nice to him.”

Sakusa’s black eyes fell on Shouyou with all the strength of his disgust and he had to swallow the groan of frustration that got stuck in his throat. It wasn’t like he’d have to _like_ the guy; he just had to coexist with him. Sakusa could see him as a tool to get his work done easily and more quickly.

“Whatever, Hinata,” he huffed out, rolling his eyes. “Listen up, robot.”

Atsumu’s hazel eyes moved from Shouyou to Sakusa. He tilted his head to the left and Hinata could catch a glimpse of the circle on his temple, shining blue underneath the cold, hard built-in lights on the ceiling above their heads.

“Yes, Omi-san?”

“That _is not_ my name,” he hissed.

Atsumu blinked.

“Is ‘Omi-kun’ okay for you?”

“You _fu—_ ”

“Omi-san!”

“ _Whatever_ ,” Sakusa spat. By the way that suspicious vein pulsated in his forehead Hinata knew it wasn’t just ‘whatever’. “Don’t ever come near me, you hear me? Just… do whatever you have to do but don’t get in my way. Understood?”

“Yes, Omi-kun.”

Hinata couldn’t help the burst of laughter that bubbled up in his throat; Atsumu’s deadpan expression and the fact that Sakusa had been so close to smacking his face in were just too much for him. The situation was ridiculous at best and Shouyou wasn’t the kind of person to hold back from joy, it didn’t matter how much Sakusa seemed to want to kill him.

Atsumu’s eyes were curious when he turned them towards Hinata while he bent by the waist, trying to make the bark of laughter subdue but to no avail.

The relationship between Atsumu and his boss didn’t improve in the next months and it didn’t really matter how much Hinata tried to make them get along. Atsumu seemed absolutely neutral about making Sakusa warm up to him and Sakusa definitely didn’t want anything to do with the android. The mere mention of him made his boss go on full murderous aura.

So Hinata gave up on his intents and ended up focusing all the time he didn’t spend archiving away reports or taking samples on learning about Atsumu. The things he liked, the things he disliked, and what were androids capable of doing. His family had been too poor to afford an android and so he became an adult feeling they were something he didn’t need; his curiosity had been piqued the moment he and his “twin” (as CyberLife insisted on calling them) crossed the doors of the police station.

“So, Atsumu-san,” he began, tapping the back of his pen against his chin. It’d been two months since his and Osamu’s arrival and the entire department seemed to have gotten used to their presence as if they’d always been there. “Can androids drink tea?”

Atsumu raised his eyes from the report he was reading. Hinata knew he didn’t need to go over the _papers_ ; he could just download the information from the police department database. He wondered why did he spend his time sitting in the chair in front of Shouyou’s desk, reading things that he already knew.

“No idea,” was the answer. He shrugged, his gaze falling back to the papers in front of him while he passed the page with a delicate swing of his right hand. “Why do you ask, Shouyou-kun?”

“I feel bad drinking tea by myself,” he whined, pouting slightly. The cup was warm in the hollow of his palms and the steam swirled up in the air, coiling towards the roof until it was too thin to be seen. “Sharing tea is always nice.”

Atsumu hummed, evidently not really interested in tea and the benefits of sharing it with someone else. Hinata smiled fondly; the fact that he was able to ignore something that didn’t pique his curiosity was something good. He’d be bold enough to call it _progress_. When Atsumu arrived, two months ago, he didn’t refuse to anything. He was a machine through and through and there was no way to make him show personality traits; his entire existence resumed to his job. He was nothing but a tool.

“Do you have any Thirium 310?”

Shouyou choked on his sip of tea.

“Do I have _what_?” he asked, trying his best not to cough all over his keyboard. Needless to say he failed miserably.

“Thirium 310,” Atsumu repeated, blinking slowly in his direction. Shouyou’s eyes caught a glimpse of the LED circle in his right temple changing from blue to yellow. “Blue blood.”

“Oh,” he exhaled, placing his cup on the desk. While he tilted his head to the left, almost as if someone was whispering some secret into his ear, he frowned slightly. “Oh! That blue liquid you androids have!”

“That one.”

“I think we keep some bottles down here—”

“S’not necessary that you look for them,” Atsumu stopped him as soon as he saw Hinata starting to push his chair backwards to stand up. “Not now, at least. I don’t need to replenish any of it, so…”

“Oh. Okay.”

Atsumu smiled at Shouyou and he’d fallen off of his chair. That was the _first time_ he’d ever smiled and he looked—

 _Beautiful_.

Now, as the entire weight of Atsumu pins him down against the concrete, Hinata notices the lump in his throat and the warm liquid that stains his shirt, extending inch by painful inch with each second that falls from the clock. His name hangs from the tip of his tongue, gets stuck on his throat, but he can’t push it pass his lips.

“Atsumu-san?” he finally manages to say. Atsumu coughs and Thirium stains Hinata’s cheek. It’s warm. “Hey, Atsumu…?”

“Shouyou-kun,” he interrupts. Hinata moves his hand, his fingers traveling over his middle to find the bullet wound. The hem of his coat and his button-up shirt are torn and he can feel the heat coming from the steel now piercing one of his biocomponents. The smell of gunpowder itches in his nose. “Ya okay?”

It’s been four months. Four months and Atsumu’s learned how to smile, how to hug, and how to drink a bottle of blue blood with him just for the sake of not letting him sip at his cup of tea by himself. He’s learned to rile Sakusa up the wall and has learned a new accent he says he likes a lot. He likes to read old Japanese novels that Shouyou doesn’t really like but buys for him anyway because he can’t fathom Atsumu’s hands without a book in between them.

He had just started _No Longer Human_ , by Dazai Osamu. He’d started reading it because he wanted to see if his twin had acquired some personality traits, too, after getting to interact constantly with humans. “It’s an experiment”, he’d said. If he reacted to Atsumu’s teasing about having the name of an old man who wrote awfully depressing novels, then he definitely had acquired some personality.

As Shouyou presses the palm of his hand over the torn coat and notices the slippery, warm Thirium coating his skin, he feels tears welling up in his eyes. He knows he’ll be alright if they manage to replace his damaged biocomponents as soon as possible but for some reason Atsumu’s _not moving_ and Hinata is pretty sure the dead android lying on the pavement over there is the first option and that their biocomponents may be compatible with his—

“Atsumu-san, I need to see if that android’s biocomponents are—”

“They aren’t,” Atsumu interrupts. His hand presses right beside Shouyou’s head and he pushes, managing to put some distance between them to stop crushing Hinata down with the weight of his body. “Already scanned them.”

 _Fuck_.

“If we call captain Meian…”

“S’not necessary, Shouyou-kun,” he interrupts again. He’s smiling down at Shouyou and something inside of his chest clenches. He’s ridiculously in love with this android and there’s a feeling akin to shame curling in his stomach but he can’t focus on it. He’s scared, so scared of losing him he can’t even think. “It’s okay. I can be replaced.”

Shouyou grits his teeth.

“That’s impossible. You _cannot_ be replaced.”

Atsumu’s eyes find Shouyou’s. It’s the same hazel as it’s always been, deep and warm and filled with things Hinata can’t really describe because he isn’t certain if they’re really there. He truly believes androids are more than just machines, more than wires and Thirium 310, more than just biocomponents. But beyond that, he can’t really tell if what moves behind those synthetic irises is real or if he’s imagining it.

His fingers are warm and smooth over the skin of his cheek, brushing slightly against the highest angle of his cheekbone. Hinata swallows around the lump in his throat with a sob catching in his throat before noticing the tears that are falling from the corners of his eyes and get lost in between his hair. Atsumu dries the tears with his thumb without ever averting his gaze from Hinata’s face.

There’s a tiny smile pulling at the right corner of his lips, the slightest start of a lopsided grin that makes Shouyou’s heart flutter in his chest.

The LED light in Atsumu’s temple flickers from yellow to red before it goes out completely.

* * *

“What,” Meian begins, “were you doing out there, on your own, with the android? Do you have any idea of how dangerous that is?”

Shouyou raises his stare from the steaming cup of coffee in front of him. He doesn’t like coffee.

“We went out for a walk,” he drones on, reaching out mechanically towards the cup so he can guide it to his lips. He doesn’t notice the scalding hot liquid against his lips or how it coats his tongue; Hinata just pushes it to the back of his throat until he’s done swallowing. Repeating the process with a precision that has nothing to envy that of the androids, he tries to put together in his head the events that had led to Atsumu’s death. “There was a deviant waiting for a cop to go out of the station. It turned out to be me. That’s the whole story.”

“Why did you take the android with you?”

“He liked going out with me whenever I needed some time off.”

“Did you teach it that?”

“What?”

“Did you program it to behave like that?”

“I know what you asked,” Hinata hisses, making his best to not throw the damn polystyrene cup at the captain’s head. Patting himself on the back for having managed to refrain from giving in to the impulse, he places the godforsaken cup on the desk in front of him and pushes it away before retracting his hand. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then?”

“ _He_. He’s not— he _was_ not an ‘it’.”

Hinata’s hands lie limp on his lap, his fingers still stained with dirt from the fall. He knows his skin and his clothes still have patches of Thirium and he’s somehow glad that he can’t see them. He feels too bad already.

“Atsumu was an android, Hinata,” the captain snaps. His hands are on the desk, fingers tense over the papers to order a replacement for the recently out-of-order tool. Shouyou sneers to himself. “Doesn’t really matter how we call it.”

Shouyou sneers again but this time directed to his captain.

“I want a week off,” he demands, standing up from his spot. The back of his knees push the hard, uncomfortable chair away from him, the legs dragging against the tiled floor witch a loud screech that makes Meian grimace. “I’m taking my paid leave.”

The captain doesn’t say no. He can’t do it after all; he’s been working for the police department ever since he graduated from college and has never asked for a paid leave in the four years he’s been doing the same job. He’s never said no to any extra work, never turned down a co-worker when they asked to exchange shifts, never even misplaced a pen. Of course the department is going to give him his paid leave.

Half an hour later, Hinata leaves the office without having said goodbye to anyone but his direct boss. Sakusa looked at him with deep worry wrinkling the spot in between his eyebrows; the so common frown projecting a completely different feeling to the one Hinata’s used to. He didn’t say anything though; he just sighed and told him to rest. He also told him to “get the fuck out of my laboratory. You’re on paid leave.”

Shouyou does his best to avoid the place where the deviant had shot Atsumu right in front of him, averting his gaze from the specific corner while he picks up the pace of his steps. The idea of being even near that spot makes his insides churn with a numb pain that he’s absolutely sure will wreak havoc once he gets to fully experiment it. He’s been going on auto-pilot since last night, when he’d decided he wanted to go the next street’s Starbucks for a Java Chips because he was out of his favourite tea and he was craving something sweet and chocolaty. Atsumu of course had closed his book and offered to join him because that’s just how he is; kind and sweet and—

 _Was. That’s how he **was**_.

Hinata picks up the pace. The muscles of his legs burn under the strain but he just keeps walking as fast as he can without running. He wants to because he’s suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that Atsumu’s _gone_ and he’ll never come back. Shouyou refuses to believe he’s just a bunch of data, connections, wires and clockwork pieces working together to create the sweetest guy he’s ever met. That’s impossible. He was so much more than that— and as such, he’s absolutely irreplaceable. He’s not a bank of data and therefore he cannot be programmed to behave like the Atsumu Hinata knew. He’s gone. _For good_.

He swallows the tears until he’s standing in front of his apartment door and doesn’t let go of the leash that keeps his feelings at bay until he’s hugging his knees while sitting on the tub. Rivulets of warm water swirling down his hair, his face, his neck, and his shoulders, steam rising from the quiet surface, coiling in the air while fogging the mirror, embedding the walls with tiny water drops that look like diamonds. Hinata lets his head loll forward and presses his forehead against his knees.

He bites his lower lip to hold back the sob. Stops when he realizes there’s a drop of blood unravelling in the water. And so he lets go.

When he comes out of the bathroom, still dripping wet, his throat is sore from sobbing and his head and eyes hurt from crying. He feels a bit better though, enough for him to try and push through the thick feeling that weighs down on his arms, making his fingers tremble slightly whenever he tries to do something. It feels as if there’re climbing plants tangling around his ankles, holding him down on his spot. It takes almost a titanic effort to move, to put one foot in front of the other, but he tries. He pushes and curses under his breath because he _needs_ to do this.

Life goes on, right? That’s what people say. Doesn’t really matter how much it hurts, the world’s not gonna stop because you’re hurting. If you don’t want to be left behind, you have no other choice but to stomp on your pain until it lies dead beneath your feet.

Hinata wants to do that but he also doesn’t want to betray his feelings. These feelings he cannot share with any other person because let’s be honest, who would fall in love with an android? That’s just— ridiculous. Stupid. Impossible. The thought shouldn’t have even crossed his head. The idea is _so wild_ that he chuckles when he slides into his sweatpants. Hinata Shouyou, twenty six years old, in love with a _robot_.

The problem’s always been that he doesn’t see androids like machinery— he’s always seen them —and treated them— as humans because _they look_ like humans and are capable of feeling, too. Isn’t that what Atsumu did? Feel? He hated so many books for the way they ended, for their lack of happy endings. Hinata often wondered the reasons as to why he’d only read such depressing novels if what he wanted was a happy ending but never questioned him. He just kept on buying books for him.

Maybe he liked the idea of getting angry at someone who’d died decades before the first of his kind had even been thought of. Hinata regrets never having asked him.

His paid leave resumes to wake up, barely eat anything, drink a lot of tea —and therefore a lot of water—, and watch whatever is broadcasting on TV. Hour after hour the soft, blue glow of the screen bathes his living room with a cold iridescence that turns the world into something surreal he can’t seem to attach himself to, least try to feel that whatever happens in it concerns him. He barely manages to make out the sounds that come from the speakers, barely manages to understand his own language.

At least no one has to see the pathetic thing he’s become. No one has to see him wearing the same clothes from the moment he wakes up to the second he goes to bed, bone-tired even though he did absolutely nothing during the entire day. His eyes are puffy and swollen from having sat too many hours in front of the television and his back is stiff— yet he can’t bring himself to fix his current state.

By the time his last day off rolls on, he’s lost a few pounds and his cheeks are hollow; the bone of his cheekbones threatens to cut through the pale skin like knives. His eyelids feel heavy; it’s like having a bunch of cotton pressing against his eyeballs, prickling at them, drying them.

When he crosses the front doors of the police department and greets the receptionist with a tired smile, she looks at him as if she’d never seen him before. He has the burning need of turning on his heels to scream at her that he knows exactly how he looks like, that she doesn’t need to pity him like she does when he strides inside the hall and takes a sideway glance towards her.

Is that how everyone’s gonna look at him now?

He stomps his way to the lab, tempted to ignore every greeting that’s sent his way but not giving in because he’s still a person, doesn’t matter how bad he feels. His co-workers look as astonished as the receptionist did while he sinks his index finger in the button of the elevator and once the doors close with a soft hum that seems to buzz through the marrow of his bones, he finally lets go of the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

The bell of the elevator chimes and the doors open, sliding to the left to reveal the black and white tiles of the floor of the corridor that leads to the office he’s been working on for four years. It’s a small antechamber with a few comfortable chairs placed along the white walls, a vending machine in one of the corners and soft, clear light falling from the built-in light bulbs on the ceiling, their light bathing the world with a glow that seems to soften the harsh angles of reality.

Hinata lets the scanner besides the door do its job and waits patiently for the system to recognize the code of his ID card. The glass doors hum open and the familiar smell of alcohol greets him as soon as he steps into the broad room. The dusty fragrance of paper, cardboard and the faint, herbal scent of tea swirling in the air along with the sterilization. It makes him feel a bit better; it’s like coming home after a long day of files, reports, samples, and a very moody Sakusa. The difference is that he’s just coming into work and the fact that his mind is filled with relief only tells him that he dreads those moments when he’s alone.

While the cloud of disinfectant fades into the air and he blinks away the uncomfortable feeling of alcohol out of his eyes, Hinata coughs into the inside of his elbow. Sakusa probably reactivated the mechanism during Shouyou’s week off because there was no one to call him out on his bullshit. He needs to talk to him before—

“Good morning, Hinata-san.”

Hinata stops dead in his tracks. His gaze moves from his desk, which looks exactly how he left it before heading off for his paid leave, to the source of the sound that just shook him to the very core. There’s something beating in the middle of his chest and he’s not quite sure it’s his heart because he doesn’t feel anything else; it’s like the empty thumping of a clock wrapped in cotton and Shouyou has flashbacks of Atsumu reading _Tell Tale Heart_.

“I’m glad you’re back from your paid leave. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“I—” he begins, looking at the man standing in front of him. The dark brown undercut with the ash blond hair on top of his head, curly enough to make him look so carefree it’s impossible for him to not give a feeling of immediate trust. An attractive neck that descends onto a broad pair of shoulders that narrow to end there in a slim waist. The CyberLife suit hugs every curve in the same way he remembers but when his stare goes back to his face and fixes in his eyes, he finds hazel looking back at him. And there’s nothing. “I have to leave.”

* * *

Sakusa places a cup of tea in front of him and doesn’t move his hand until Hinata encircles his own fingers around it. It’s piping hot and steam curls from the dark surface, coiling into the atmosphere and fogging Shouyou’s glasses.

“You haven’t said anything since you came back,” his boss comments. He’s so tall it looks almost funny when he leans his hip against the edge of Shouyou’s desk, crossing his arms over his chest while directing a curious look of his pitch black eyes to him. “What’s the matter with you?”

Shouyou taps his fingers against the polystyrene cup and tries his best to smile.

He fails.

“Nothing,” he lies, clearing his throat. There’s a lump there that hasn’t disappeared ever since _the incident_ and he’s trying to get used to it, but it’s hard when he remembers the reasons as to why it’s there in the first place. It seems to constrict everything he is and he’s afraid it might snap his veins under the pressure. “I’m sleepy, that’s all. One week can _really_ screw with your sleep schedule… who would’ve thought?”

“The bags under your eyes aren’t from yesterday only, Hinata,” Sakusa muses. Half of his expression is covered by the face mask and yet Shouyou can almost see his lips pursing in disgust. There’s only one thing Sakusa Kiyoomi hates more than germs, uncleanliness, and androids: lies. And he’s basically screaming lie after lie to his face. _The audacity_. “Spill it.”

“I’m fine!” he chuckles, giving his boss a diminishing curlicue of his right wrist. “I stayed up late yesterday, that’s all!”

Sakusa blinks. He doesn’t believe in his words but doesn’t say anything, and thus the atmosphere stays rarefied and tense, electricity constantly snapping.

Three months go by since _he_ returned. Hinata’s lost a few more pounds and he looks nothing like the healthy guy that could devour an entire order of meat buns in one sitting. He had to pierce new holes into belt and is now joining Sakusa during his long night shifts at the morgue.

For some reason he doesn’t really begin to understand, _he_ seems drawn to him. Doesn’t matter where Hinata tries to flee, he’s always there. Be it in the street or inside the police station or even in their underground laboratory, Atsumu —the replacement, the one that looks like him but it’s not him— is always there. It’s infuriating.

He’s gotten used to the anger that claws at his heart and the sorrow that weighs on his back. This new Atsumu isn’t guilty of anything and therefore, Hinata can’t snap at him. He wishes he could but he refrains from even thinking about it. He’s a person too, doesn’t matter how confusing this is for his heart and his brain, and so he tries to stay as away from him as he can without being rude.

Atsumu spends his time working hard, fast, and efficiently. Sakusa won’t admit it but ever since he and his twin were assigned to the police department, things started going so smoothly for them that it isn’t even necessary for the forensics team to work overtime. No one ever questioned his boss about why, even when there was no work left, he decided to stay afterhours. No one questions Hinata either when he starts doing the same.

“Hinata-san,” Atsumu calls. He can almost see his voice dripping honey. Shouyou presses his foot against the throat of that thought until it’s not breathing anymore. “Sakusa-san needs the reports of the last filed case.”

“Ah, yes. Give me a second,” he answers. Shouyou doesn’t look at him, doesn’t allow this Atsumu to step into his world like the prior did. Doesn’t move from the drawn path for them; he keeps his distance, the longer the better, and tries to survive to the pain that’d surely bend him by the waist if he didn’t spend his entire day sitting in one spot. “Where’d I file that…”

“Hinata-san?”

“Mhm?” he hums while typing away on the computer keyboard. The clicking of the keys fills the room and makes Atsumu squint.

“Are you okay?”

Shouyou’s fingers tense over the keyboard. There’s a typo saying hello from the screen.

He hits backspace.

“Perfectly fine. Why do you ask?”

“Your neurotransmitters, especially dopamine and serotonin, are worryingly low. This might be a sign of atypical depression—”

“I’m _fine_ ,” he cuts off. The research shows the location of the files Sakusa asked for and he’s more than ready to go and find them if that means he gets to slide off Atsumu’s innocent pressure. “I’ll go get the reports.”

Hinata grits his teeth. The LED circle in Atsumu’s temple flickers from blue to red for a millisecond and then changes to yellow. Two seconds fall from the clock while they stare at each other in silence before his software instability subdues.

He stands up and walks towards the doors, heading for the room where all the files are stored.

Their relationship doesn’t improve but it doesn’t worsen either. They seem to tilt their weighs on a delicately calibrated balance, the axis in the middle so fragile that even the slightest change on the tense dynamic they’ve developed could snap it in half.

The problem is that neither of them makes it snap. It’s life itself the one that does it.

It’s late at night when the police department gets a call about someone who found a body in a dumpster. They said they’d heard weird noises coming from the alley adjacent to their apartment a few nights ago but decided to ignore it, thinking it could’ve been a stray cat or something. The garbage truck wouldn’t come for a few days due to some sanitary problems with the hospital, and thus the neighbours were left with accumulating trash on their streets. The person who found the body said they’d expected some smell coming from the dumpster but they definitely hadn’t expected the smell of _ammonia_ produced by biological decomposition coming from their dumpster.

When the police and the forensics team made it to the scene and Atsumu analysed the first data and samples he could find, the immediate verdict was murder. And a violent one at that. When Atsumu started listing the number of injuries and wounds for Hinata to write them down, Shouyou had noticed the bile burning in the back of his throat.

The forensics team worked for a few hours, trying to get as much evidence as they could. Anything could do to spark the idea of a lead and they wanted nothing more than get over with that _quickly._ In the four years Shouyou had been working for the Tokyo Police Department, he’d _never_ seen such a disgusting scene.

 _And this isn’t even the crime scene_.

Once they were back at the lab, Sakusa’s first suspicion was confirmed: this wasn’t _just_ murder.

“Rape.”

The word sends chills down Hinata’s spine. He’d never seen one and he’s sure as hell he doesn’t want to see one ever again. Sakusa’s eyes lift from the body in front of him to fix them on Shouyou, whose own stare is nailed to the frame laying pale and almost glimmering under the hard light of the light bulb hovering over the victim’s face. He swallows around the lump in his throat, that one that never leaves no matter what he does, and finds the bitter, acidic after taste of bile coating his tongue.

“Atsumu,” Sakusa calls, straightening his back. He places the scalpel over the tray and adjusts his gloves with the screeching of a balloon rubbing against another. “Get Hinata out of my lab.”

“What?!”

“I don’t want you here. You’re pale and I swear to god, Hinata, if you puke on my floor _I’m gonna snap_. And I don’t want the android working with me when I don’t need it,” he almost _sneers_ at them. Black eyes go from a perplex Shouyou to an expressionless Atsumu and while he blinks slowly, Hinata can see the way he presses his lips together even from under the face mask. “Take a week off, Hinata. This is a direct order from your superior. You, can opener!”

“Yes, Sakusa-san?”

“Take care of him. I don’t care what he says, I don’t care what excuse he gives you, _he doesn’t step out of his house._ Not to buy a candy.”

“Yes, Sakusa-san.”

“Listen, Omi-san, you can’t just tell me to take a week off— that’s captain Meian’s jurisdiction,” Hinata babblers, blinking in confusion. The situation is suffocating him. He wouldn’t mind a week off and after seeing that corpse, he’s more than ready to fuck off into the sunset until his guts rearrange themselves into something recognizable as a digestive system, but he refuses to spend _one week_ alone with Atsumu. The delicate balance they’ve kept up until now has never been so threatened and he feels the burning need of protecting it even if he has to use his mental health as payment. “Besides, I need to get used to this sort of cases, don’t I? It’s not the last—”

“If I send you to Meian,” his boss interrupts. There’re wrinkles around the external angle of his eyes that ditch a triumphal smile and Shouyou notices something cold falling from his throat to his stomach, “he’ll send you home under psychological watch. We all have to go to a therapist every week, do you want to include an external psychiatrist to keep track of your mental health?”

Hinata grits his teeth. The grip around the ballpoint pen in between his fingers strengthens until he hears the crack of the plastic beneath his fingertips. Sakusa’s eyes fall on his hand while raising an accusing eyebrow, as if he’s telling him ‘I told you so’.

“Look, you’ve been looking like shit since Can Opener Number One clocked off. I get it, ok? Use this to rest. And I mean _rest_ , Hinata. There’s no use to you if you can’t even function.”

“But—”

“Get the fuck out of my laboratory, shrimp.”

Hinata bites his lower lip. His boss is right; there’s no use to him if he’s not fully rested. He hasn’t functioned like a normal human being since _the incident_ and the only reason as to why his department hasn’t collapsed is because Atsumu’s been keeping track of all his functions while he tries his best to just _exist_.

He casts a side glance towards Atsumu. The LED circle in his right temple flickers from yellow to red for a few seconds and then goes back to blue.

“ _Fine_.”

It takes Shouyou and Atsumu ten minutes to be ready to head off. While he puts on his jacket and leaves the matter in Sakusa’s hands, he walks out of the office with his hands sunk deep into his jeans pockets. Atsumu walks half a step behind him and the way his motions are so measured and elegant makes him feel uncomfortable. He used to admire the grace to his every move and used to envy how skilful his hands were. He loved watching his fingers as they ran over the page of a book, carefully holding the upper corner in between his thumb and index finger as if it had been the most delicate thing to ever exist. Now he can only look away. 

Hinata walks a little bit faster. He recognizes this corner. Knows it like the back of his hand because albeit his efforts to avoid it, he still found himself looking intently at it as if he could somehow get Atsumu back. Maybe some part of himself thought that he could mourn him to life once again.

He wonders if there’s still Thirium 310 staining the concrete. Rain and snow have surely erased the traces of blue blood from the pavement—

“There’s Thirium 310 on the floor,” Atsumu comments. His voice has no inflection. “What happened here?”

“You’ve never been here?” Hinata asks in a sour tone of voice that makes him grimace. He has to remind himself constantly about how Atsumu isn’t at fault for everything that happened that night. The confusion between the Atsumu he knew before and the one he gets to walk alongside with now is fucking up his thought process and he tries with all his might to not look, but he does anyway. The bitter flavour of bile is back, kicking the back of his throat.

“Not that I remember.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

“Oh, wait,” the android keeps going, ignoring Hinata’s attempt of letting the subject die. “Wasn’t here where I—?”

“Yes, it was. Can we please get a taxi, Atsumu-san?”

Atsumu’s hazel eyes are on Shouyou’s frame. By the way the LED circle in his temple flickers, he knows Atsumu’s scanning him. He hates the situation; he’d been the one to suggest that he might be showing symptoms of atypical depression and the idea of him even being able to find out what’s _really_ going on…

“Of course.”

The trip from the police station to Hinata’s apartment is thirty minutes long. He’s never felt it too long or too short; it just feels _right_. Long enough for him to get mentally ready for his day, short enough for him to not get even more tired along the way. He’s always considered that his apartment is at the perfect distance from his job and basically everything he likes to spend his time on; going out with his friends to some pub, hitting up some Starbucks when he’s kind of tired of drinking tea and he’s in the mood for something sweeter and creamier. Close enough to the mall that he can go stuff his face on a burger whenever he pleases— although not always. He can’t allow himself to gain weight or he’d have to buy new clothes and that’s an unnecessary expense he’s not willing to make.

Now, however, while he sinks as far as he can go on the backseat of the taxi, Shouyou feels that the distance from the police station to his home is infinite. The never ending road stretches ahead for miles and miles, piercing through the fabric of space and time itself just to torture him. Atsumu fidgets on his spot while trying to look at him and when Hinata raises his eyes from the nape of the driver, he expects to find furrowed brows and a wrinkle filled with worrisome in the middle of his forehead.

What he finds is a pair of distant hazel irises staring directly into his soul without realizing it.

When they hop off of the vehicle, Atsumu goes ahead and pays for the trip without even asking Hinata. The young man blinks in confusion, realizing a few seconds later that maybe Sakusa asked him to cover the fare with the police department’s money. Androids can interact with technology without touching it after all, using only their wireless connections to make the world go round within their reach.

Hinata tries to smile. It’s funny if he thinks about it that way. Androids and technology are like humans and other humans somehow; their relationship is complicated and they make the world function around them. They feed on each other, _assist_ each other.

He tries to smile but he fails.

Shouyou fumbles with the keys until he finally finds the one that unlocks his front door. The hinges let out a whine that makes him cringe in the perpetual memory of having to grease them and not doing it because he can barely take care of himself. It’s pathetic; he knows he should be over it already. It’s not like he had a deeper relationship with Atsumu. He was in love with a machine, after all; that was doomed to end _horribly_ wrong… and that it did. He was now left hurting and depressed with serious problems to keep going because the world definitely didn’t stop when one was hurting.

“I’m gonna go to bed,” he announces. Atsumu blinks in his direction, closing the door behind his back. “You guys sleep?”

He never asked that before _the incident_. The question never occurred to him.

“Some of us do,” he answers. His voice sounds soothing and relaxing, nice to hear even. Shouyou knows he’s trying to calm him down, trying to see if he’s gonna snap and try to kill himself or something like that. Once again, he cringes; he’s not thinking about ending it, he’s just depressed. Give him a break. “I don’t have any pattern that resembles human sleeping, though. Would you like me to try one?”

_Too polite._

“If that’s fine with you,” Shouyou shrugs. He doesn’t really care or mind about Atsumu’s sleeping patterns or however he wants to call them— he just wants to go to bed. Whenever he blinks he remembers he’s got the image of that corpse burnt into the back of his eyelids and the memory isn’t _nice_. He doubts he’ll be able to forget it with just one night of sleep but he might as well give it a shot. “See you in the morning.”

“Good night, Hinata-san.”

_He’d call me ‘Shouyou-kun’._

How do you deal with the death of someone you love while having someone that looks exactly the same as them? How do you cope with loss when you hear a voice that resembles that one the loved one you lost all the time? _This_ Atsumu looks exactly like him, has the exact same voice as him. The same hands that move gracefully over everything but that don’t hold books anymore. The same swinging when walking, something that always caught Hinata’s eye.

But he’s not the same person. He just looks alike.

Hinata slides into his bed without even sliding off of his jeans. The sheets feel cold against his even colder body and he sinks into the mattress while he waits for the warmth to envelop him.

* * *

“Hinata-san!”

Shouyou slaps the hand that shakes his left shoulder away. The strength of the motion and the hit leave his skin ringing with a hot, red pain that stretches long and invasive fingers through the length of his arm. He blinks into the bluish darkness of his room and tries to register his surroundings, tries to understand what’s going on but it’s been a while since he was able to do that. He’s been living on autopilot for— he can’t even remember. Months? Years? Decades?

His eyes seem to zoom in and out like a camera, making his head spin with the unpleasant feeling of having to live through a blurry vision and confused sense of hearing. He’s still lying on his bed; that much he can make out by the soft, warm sheet against his back and the heavy duvet weighing down on him. He’d be comfortable if he hadn’t been sweating like he was— his hair sticks to his temples and his forehead and his shirt seems glued to his back, right in the middle on his shoulder blades.

By the deep darkness he can see through his closed window, it’s close to the sunrise. Tokyo never sleeps but he notices the differences in the noise out of his house. It’s different, although he can’t explain how.

Oh, right, he’d swatted a hand away. That’d be— _a hand?_

His gaze finally falls on the shape hovering over him on the bed. He can barely distinguish a blurry shape amidst the darkness of his room and he has to admit that the streetlamp in front of his apartment building isn’t helping that much either. It’s a moonless night and so he depends only on artificial light to illuminate the night sky.

The lamp on his nightstand flickers on, golden rays of light stretching across his room, outlining the shapes that’d been hidden by the deep blackness until a few seconds ago. Hinata recognizes his own room, including the pile of dirty laundry he hasn’t taken care of in weeks, and although he recognizes the frame and the face that towers over him, he feels it clashing against his surroundings. It feels out of place, like it doesn’t belong, and it takes him five of the longest seconds of his life to finally understand _why_.

“Atsumu-san,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse and his throat feels tender and abused, as if he’d been screaming nonstop for hours. Grimacing, Hinata pushes Atsumu away from him and sits on the bed, rubbing soothing circles at each side of his Adam’s apple. “What is it?”

“You were having a nightmare,” Atsumu informs, taking a hesitant step back. The LED circle in his temple flickers from blue to yellow and when Hinata expects it to go back to normal, he realizes with a weird feeling on his gut that it stays like that. It feels like missing a step while going down the stairs; the light is supposed to flicker back to blue, why is it still yellow? “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

Oh. That explains why his throat hurts that much.

“I’m fine,” he manages to croak, cringing again at the hoarseness of his voice. He tries to cough to clear his throat but ends up whining at the piercing pain that goes from the front of his neck to his nape. “Ah, shit. That hurts.”

“You aren’t fine,” Atsumu complains, wrinkling his nose. Hinata blinks up at him, opening his mouth to say something and closing it a few seconds later without having said anything. It’s the first time he sees this Atsumu even using the muscles of his face. “Why are you lying?”

“It’s okay, Atsumu-san. Really. I don’t need anything. You can go back to—”

“Your adrenaline is skyrocketing,” he interrupts, pursing his lips. Hinata bites back the annoyed groan that kicks the back of his throat. “Why…?”

“Nevermind, okay? Go back to sleep.”

The LED circle flickers to red. _Software instability_ , he thinks. Atsumu used to have them all the time whenever he was around Hinata. The only time he asked, Atsumu had laughed it off and told him he was just downloading information; the operative system of every android just tended to have fluctuations when downloading big chunks of data. That was all. Nothing to worry about.

The way Atsumu’s nostrils flare when he inhales a long intake of air makes Shouyou think that _maybe_ that software instability isn’t ‘nothing’. He doesn’t understand that much about androids— he just knows that they can learn to smile and hug and that some of them are kind enough to be willing to drink Thirium 310 they don’t need to replenish for the sake of one small, sad human not feeling alone. He just knows that they’re warm, they _bleed,_ and they can die.

They’re very similar to humans. Even if humans could come back from the dead, he’s sure none of them would be the same. It’s inevitable; death always takes its toll. He’s got living (sort of) proof right on front of his eyes. 

“Hinata-san…”

Shouyou sighs. It’s a deep, tired sound that makes Atsumu look at him with wonder and curiosity. It’s weird how this is the first time he’s exchanged more than a few words with him just to find that he feels like he just stepped out of his box. He reminds Hinata of the android he was when he’d just arrived to the police station, brand new, more machine than anything else. Shouyou realizes that all the time he, Sakusa (albeit reluctantly), Meian, and the other members of the department spent with Atsumu is what made him what he was before his death; this is the outcome of having ignored him for so long. Humans work like that too, right? They need human interaction to _become human_.

It dawns on him that he didn’t have the mental capability of going through that entire process all over again. He’d put so much love into teaching Atsumu what he thought every person should know— tea, books, sharing time with friends. Enjoying a quiet walk around the city or crying from laughing so hard at something someone just said. He just didn’t want all that effort to go to waste again.

“I’m okay, Atsumu-san,” he says, sighing deeply. He tries to smile and feels the fond gesture pulling at the corners of his mouth; he pats himself on the back for managing to smile for the first time since _the incident_. “Go back to sleep— _oof_.”

Atsumu is still as heavy as he remembers, although the situation _is a bit_ different than the other. He’s tried to erase every single detail of that night from his mind but to no avail; it feels like they’re engraved in the centre of his mind with the sting of a burn and it _hurts_ but he knows that forgetting everything would mean forgetting the fleeting touch of his fingers on his cheek and the beginning of a smile pulling at one of the corners of his mouth.

He knows that the amount of pain he’s experienced ever since that night, ever since the tried to forget while deep down still refusing to, doesn’t really pay off that slight, ephemeral moment of happiness. That small joy doesn’t compare to all the suffering he’s endured. That moment when he can almost decipher what he found behind those hazel irises that are still haunting his dreams make him step back from the edge of forgetfulness, sending him to dive into tears and memories he really wishes he could erase but knows he will never let go.

But now— this is different. There’s a completely different meaning to the weight that pins him down against the warm mattress and this time he isn’t getting soaked in blue blood. This time he just has to gasp against the mouth that presses against his.

Atsumu’s lips are as smooth as the rest of his skin. They’re also as warm, something Shouyou wasn’t expecting for some unknown reason. He’s gentle and careful while he holds his face in between his hands— those hands that used to love turning the pages of books even though he doesn’t need books. Those hands that have always looked so graceful, so elegant.

Shouyou tries to forget about before and enjoy the present, but he’s still trapped in between the arms of something that never came to be. This Atsumu he’s been in love with for months doesn’t exist anymore and he really needs to deal with it in a healthier way.

Atsumu breaks the kiss and presses his forehead to Shouyou’s. Hinata finds deep, hazel eyes staring right into his soul and for the first time in _months_ , he feels like the other is finally seeing something. It’s such a small difference, almost unnoticeable… but it’s there. He feels it like an electric shock going down his nerves, snapping down his spine. It’s not like there are literal fireworks exploding around him nor a choir of angels singing hallelujah. It’s more silent, lethal even.

“If ya keep lyin’ like that, Imma get _mad_.”

Shouyou’s head bumps into Atsumu’s when he pushes him away so he can sit once again on the bed. He _pushes_ until he’s sitting at arm length, putting enough distance between them to look at him as if he’d never seen him before. There’s something here that’s not _adding_ and he really needs to sort this out because his head is a mess, his heart is a mess, _everything_ is a mess and he’s only human.

“What?”

“I said—”

“I know what you said!” he snaps. Shouyou’s fingers tense against Atsumu’s chest, his hand pressed on the spot where his heart would be if he were human. His stare fixes on the back of his hand while he bites his lower lip; there’s a biocomponent that resembles the function of the human heart underneath it, underneath layers of synthetic skin and plastic. He looks like a human, Hinata thinks of him as one, but he doesn’t belong to the same species as him. “I just…”

“I remember that night,” Atsumu bursts out. The way he averts his gaze as soon as Shouyou’s eyes rise from his hand to his face makes him think of the person he was before _the incident_. He used to get flustered so easily that Hinata couldn’t help but _flirt_ with him because he enjoyed his reactions. “’m so sorry, Shouyou-kun.”

“You idiot,” Hinata snorts, swallowing around the lump in his throat. It’s still there, still pressing against his Adam’s apple. It’s still hard to breathe, it’s still hard to exist. “Weren’t you supposed to erase unnecessary memories…?”

“There’s nothin’ unnecessary ‘bout ya, though,” he answers, shrugging one shoulder. He chuckles, a nervous sound that has Shouyou’s heart fluttering in his chest and electricity sparking through his nerve ends. “’m sorry it took me so long ta gather the data banks—”

“Data banks?”

There’s something that’s not adding. And _that’s_ something he’ll keep saying until the end of the world because he doesn’t really understand what’s going on but he isn’t about to step back from it either. It’s just deeply confusing how all this situation seems to have come out of the _blue_ and now Hinata has to deal with this in the best way he can, but he doesn’t know _how_.

“I could… remember. Bits of it. The deviant, me jumpin’ in front of the bullet. I think it destroyed one of my biocomponents ‘cause I couldn’t move.”

Hinata’s missed that accent… that one he chose all by himself because he liked the sound of it. One of Shouyou’s favourite personality traits about Atsumu.

“When I came back I was… me, but not me at the same time, and it was _weird_. And ya weren’t around ta make me remember.”

 _Oh_.

“Do you remember now?”

“Yah, how could I forget that pretty smile of yers?”

He blinks slowly into the golden light of the lamp on his nightstand, tries to take it all in. He’s still confused and has a lot of questions but in all honesty he doesn’t think he’s able to have this conversation now.

“I need to sleep.”

“Ya also need ta stop mournin’ an android’s death, Shouyou-kun.”

“I’m in love with said android so _please_ let me sleep.”

“Yessir.”

He’s missed his lopsided smile so much he can’t help the sob that catches in his throat.

**Author's Note:**

> And that's all from me for this year's week! It's been an honour and a pleasure to write for you. I really hope you enjoyed reading this series as much as I enjoyed writing it because heaven knows I've had a blast through these past seven days. 
> 
> Also, a big shot out to the AtsuHina Nation's content creators! This week couldn't've been as amazing as it was without every single entry and I'm proud to say I contributed a bit to the fandom. Thank you all for all the hard work you put into making this event unforgettable. 
> 
> Thank you to all those who read my fics during this week, too. You've made me really, really happy. You've no idea. 
> 
> So this is it for this year! I'll see you guys on a next Week or another work I might publish in the future. 
> 
> In the meantime, remember to come scream at me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Xhiiluh) and/or [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/Xhiiluh)! 
> 
> It's been a pleasure. Please stay tuned if you like my works! 


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